Category Archives: Ugly

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A few days ago, on April 20 2017, the Ministry of Justice declared the Kola Ecological Center, of which my mate Alexandra is a member, a “foreign agent” for receiving foreign financing and being engaged in political activity.

Its “political activity” appears to be taking part in public hearings where government officials were present.

The “foreign agent” status means, in addition to a serious stigma, a significant increase in the amount of reporting paperwork the NGO has to do.

The Kola Ecological Center is behind the eco-trails east of Kandalaksha and near Kolvitsa. They also orchestrated the construction of a WW2 memorial in Kolvitsa. These are the sort of things that stand out in their work, not attempting to influence Russian government officials using foreign funds.

Spring’s traditional misadventure in the form of an unsceduled trip to the White Sea distances has apparently taken place today, with two kids taking off on an ice floe. Apparently it all ended well but I have no details.

A typical event of this sort, with most of local arts and crafts community present. New was a noticeable number of the police, and people with newly fashionable “patriotic” symbolics, such as this gentleman with “Glory to great Stalin” T-shirt AND an Orthodox cross on his bag, a combination that exemplifies present-day Russia:

About a week ago there were a few reports of bears by the TV tower just east from Kandalaksha. Today I read that a decision to shoot them has been made by the wildlife authorities following their failure to chase the animals away. Sorry guys!

A bunch of mass media outlets came out with a heading “Demonstration by migrants in Kandalaksha provoked by the New York Times journalists”, who are accused of organizing the demonstration and are said to have made signs demanding that migrants be let into Finland.

..is getting worse in the meantime after Finland has recently refused letting these people in. About 100 of Arab and African migrants are now stuck in Kandalaksha, many without money or winter clothing, according to this report by TV-21 of Murmansk:

During a small protest demonstration (shown in the video above) they asked for donations of food and warm clothing.